In 1997, she won the Robbins World Cup Trading Championship, as her father had done 10 years earlier.[3] She won after turning $10,000 into $110,000 over the course of a year and that gain (as of 2006) is the fourth highest in the history of that competition (her father has the highest).[4]

Two other films include director Lukas Moodysson's Mammoth with Gael García Bernal; and Incendiary, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2008.[5] Williams recently said that she is "going to take a year off" as she "stopped feeling creative a little while ago, and ... [is] just realizing it now," and is also "feeling the strain of being a working single mom" and the untimely death of her former fiance, Heath Ledger.[5]

Williams can be seen in the upcoming romance film Blue Valentine with Ryan Gosling; the film is currently in pre-production and has a release date of 2010.[6]

Williams is one of the 134 moviemakers who have been invited to join the Academy Awards Organization.[7]

Williams "reads bedtime stories to Matilda ... in whatever accent she's practicing — East London for 'Incendiary,' Boston for 'Shutter Island' — but has had a hard time balancing the immersive demands of acting and the consuming duties of motherhood" and "The bleakness of some of the roles has also taken a toll".[5] Williams "still finds herself reacting to the tabloid intrusions" of celebrity stardom "with bewilderment" and finds it difficult to "negotiate a gulf between private self and public image" and the phenomenon of celebrity 'a bit of an isolating problem to have'".[5] Williams is "an avid reader who favors poetry over novels while filming so she's not distracted by competing narratives" and who would like "to pick up a skill" like embroidery during her yearlong sabbatical from filming.[5]

In a December 2008 interview with L.A. Weekly, Williams spoke about taking time off set to be a full-time single mother and the support she has found in what she refers to as "coffee-shop parents" and "single-mom parents". Williams said, "I’m not quite ready to give up working, but I don’t know how to do the good balance of it. That’s the challenge, to live in the chaos."[17]

Williams was dating director Spike Jonze. The pair came out as a couple in July 2008.[18] In September 2009, Williams confirmed the pair had split.[19]

Death of Heath Ledger

Heath Ledger was found dead in his New York apartment on January 22, 2008, from what was later determined to be an accidental overdose of prescription drugs.[20][21] Williams's publicist released her first public statement about his death on February 1, 2008: "Please respect our need to grieve privately. My heart is broken. I am the mother of the most tender-hearted, high-spirited, beautiful little girl who is the spitting image of her father. All that I can cling to is his presence inside her that reveals itself every day. His family and I watch Matilda as she whispers to trees, hugs animals, and takes steps two at a time and we know that he is with us still. She will be brought up with the best memories of him".[22]

^ Caccetta, Wendy and Nicole Cox. "Beach Tribute to Heath Ledger".The Courier Mail. February 10, 2008. accessed February 27, 2008: "Friends and family of actor Heath Ledger washed away their pain with a spontaneous splash in the West Australian surf last night. ... Ledger's former fiancee Michelle Williams and his sister Kate left his wake to join dozens of others at an uplifting farewell at the Perth beach the star had loved so much."

Michelle Williams (born September 9, 1980[1]) is an Academy Award-nominated American actress. Williams broke into stardom on the teen series Dawson's Creek and later graduated to full length features, such as Brokeback Mountain, for which she earned an Oscars nomination for Best Supporting Actress.